EETimes Junko Yoshida publishes a review of Waymo Driver presentation by YooJung Ahn, head of design at Waymo. The new AV platform features 29 cameras and 5 LiDARs:
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Waymo 5th Gen AV Features 29 Cameras and 5 LiDARs
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SK Hynix CIS Promotional Video
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Chinese Face Recognition Startup Raises $141M
BiometricUpdate reports that Shenzhen, China-based startup Intellifusion raises $141M. The security solutions is an area of intensive investment in China. Intellifusion is a 6-year old company and plans an IPO in the near future. The investors are a mix of Chinese and international VCs.
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PrimeNano Pixel Analysis
PrimeNano uses pixels as a demo of capabilities of its analytical instruments:
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The company also re-publishes 2015 Chipworks paper on using sMIM technique for doping analysis:
"Scanning microwave impedance microscopy (sMIM) is a new scanning probe microscopy (SPM) technique that replaces traditional scanning capacitance microscopy (SCM). Like SCM, the new sMIM technique reveals information on the implanted dopant structures of a semiconductor device. The sMIM technology provides the traditional dC/dV SCM images, which give insight into the dopant types and the positions of junction, while also providing several other channels of information, including sMIM-C and sMIM-R. The sMIM-C signal is proportional to the permittivity/capacitance variation, which, for semiconducting samples, depends on the carrier concentration, since highly doped materials will give lower capacitance for the tip-sample contact than low doped materials. The sMIM-R channel provides information about the conductivity of the sample."
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The company also re-publishes 2015 Chipworks paper on using sMIM technique for doping analysis:
"Scanning microwave impedance microscopy (sMIM) is a new scanning probe microscopy (SPM) technique that replaces traditional scanning capacitance microscopy (SCM). Like SCM, the new sMIM technique reveals information on the implanted dopant structures of a semiconductor device. The sMIM technology provides the traditional dC/dV SCM images, which give insight into the dopant types and the positions of junction, while also providing several other channels of information, including sMIM-C and sMIM-R. The sMIM-C signal is proportional to the permittivity/capacitance variation, which, for semiconducting samples, depends on the carrier concentration, since highly doped materials will give lower capacitance for the tip-sample contact than low doped materials. The sMIM-R channel provides information about the conductivity of the sample."
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IR Photodetectors Comparison
2017 Nanophotonics issue feantures an paper "Emerging technologies for high performance infrared detectors" by Chee Leong Tan and Hooman Mohseni from Northwestern University, Evanstone, IL. It quotes an excellent specific detectivity comparison chart of most of the available IR detectors together with D* limits of the ideal photodiode, photoconductor, and bolometer (quoted from Rogalski A. History of infrared detectors. Optoelectron Rev 2012;20:279–308.)
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Why MCT APDs Do Not Have Excess Noise
2009 presentation "Electron- and Hole- Avalanche HgCdTe Photodiode Arrays for Astronomy" by Donald N. B. Hall from Teledyne and University of Hawaii gives one of the best explanations of nearly noiseless avalanche multiplication in MCT materials:
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Eye Tracking Tutorial
Edge AI and Vision Alliance publishes May 2019 tutorial "Eye Tracking for the Future: The Eyes Have It" by Peter Milford, President of Parallel Rules. One of the key takeaways is that eye tracking is not ready for mass market consumer applications:
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Interview about Intel Realsense Indoor LiDAR
Framos publishes an interview with Brian Pruitt, Director of Product & Partner Marketing at Intel responsible for Intel RealSense product line. The L515 is the first camera in the Intel LiDAR camera family launched in Q4 2019:
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Google Explains Depth Engine in Pixel 4 Smartphone
Google explains depth sensing in its Pixel 4 smartphone:
"To deal with textureless regions and cope with low-light conditions, we make use of an “active stereo” setup, which projects an IR pattern into the scene that is detected by stereo IR cameras. This approach makes low-texture regions easier to identify, improving results and reducing the computational requirements of the system.
Stereo sensing systems can be extremely computationally intensive, and it’s critical that a sensor running at 30Hz is low power while remaining high quality. uDepth leverages a number of key insights to accomplish this.
we apply a novel technique for neural depth refinement to support the regular grid pattern illuminator on the Pixel 4. Typical active stereo systems project a pseudo-random grid pattern to help disambiguate matches in the scene, but uDepth is capable of supporting repeating grid patterns as well. Repeating structure in such patterns produces regions that look similar across stereo pairs, which can lead to incorrect matches. We mitigate this issue using a lightweight (75k parameter) convolutional architecture, using IR brightness and neighbor information to adjust incorrect matches — in less than 1.5ms per frame."
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In the end, Google gives a couple of examples of depth-enabled photography features:
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"To deal with textureless regions and cope with low-light conditions, we make use of an “active stereo” setup, which projects an IR pattern into the scene that is detected by stereo IR cameras. This approach makes low-texture regions easier to identify, improving results and reducing the computational requirements of the system.
Stereo sensing systems can be extremely computationally intensive, and it’s critical that a sensor running at 30Hz is low power while remaining high quality. uDepth leverages a number of key insights to accomplish this.
we apply a novel technique for neural depth refinement to support the regular grid pattern illuminator on the Pixel 4. Typical active stereo systems project a pseudo-random grid pattern to help disambiguate matches in the scene, but uDepth is capable of supporting repeating grid patterns as well. Repeating structure in such patterns produces regions that look similar across stereo pairs, which can lead to incorrect matches. We mitigate this issue using a lightweight (75k parameter) convolutional architecture, using IR brightness and neighbor information to adjust incorrect matches — in less than 1.5ms per frame."
In the end, Google gives a couple of examples of depth-enabled photography features:
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Epic Zoom Meeting on IR Imaging in Security and Surveillance
EPIC meetings switched over to an online format. The first meeting include presentations from IRnova, Lynred, Leonardo, MBDA, FLIR, Lambda-X, ACM Coatings, Emberion, and Asphericon:
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EPFL and Canon 1MP SPAD Imager
Phys.org publishes an article about ELPF and Canon paper in OSA Optica "Megapixel time-gated SPAD image sensor for 2D and 3D imaging applications" by Kazuhiro Morimoto, Andrei Ardelean, Ming-Lo Wu, Arin Can Ulku, Ivan Michel Antolovic, Claudio Bruschini, and Edoardo Charbon. A similar paper has been posted in Arxiv.org a couple of months ago.
"Thanks to its high resolution and ability to measure depth, this new camera could make virtual reality more realistic and let you interact with augmented reality information in a more seamless manner," said Edoardo Charbon from the Advanced Quantum Architecture Laboratory (AQUALab) at École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland.
"For transportation applications, this new camera could help achieve unprecedented levels of autonomy and safety by enabling multiple low-power LiDAR devices to be used on a vehicle, providing fast, high-resolution 3-D view of the surroundings," said first author, Kazuhiro Morimoto from Canon Inc. in Japan. "In a somewhat more distant future, quantum communication, sensing and computing could all benefit from photon-counting cameras with multi-megapixel resolution."
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"Thanks to its high resolution and ability to measure depth, this new camera could make virtual reality more realistic and let you interact with augmented reality information in a more seamless manner," said Edoardo Charbon from the Advanced Quantum Architecture Laboratory (AQUALab) at École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland.
"For transportation applications, this new camera could help achieve unprecedented levels of autonomy and safety by enabling multiple low-power LiDAR devices to be used on a vehicle, providing fast, high-resolution 3-D view of the surroundings," said first author, Kazuhiro Morimoto from Canon Inc. in Japan. "In a somewhat more distant future, quantum communication, sensing and computing could all benefit from photon-counting cameras with multi-megapixel resolution."
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EPIC Zoom Meeting on Automotive LiDAR
EPIC Photonics publishes an online meeting on automotive LiDAR including presentations from Ibeo, LeddarTech, JENOPTIK, Light Tec, imec, SMART Photonics, and Hamamatsu:
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Polight Closes $3.84M Investment, Plans Another $960K
Polight announces that it has raised approximately NOK 40M (approx $3.84M) through a private placement. The Private Placement took place through an accelerated bookbuilding process managed by ABG Sundal Collier ASA and Arctic Securities AS as joint bookrunners. The net proceeds from the Private Placement will be used to finance further growth of the Company and general corporate purposes.
The company also plans a subsequent offering of up to approximately NOK 10M at the same subscription price as in the Private Placement.
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The company also plans a subsequent offering of up to approximately NOK 10M at the same subscription price as in the Private Placement.
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Bosch and Sony Security Camera Partnership Ends
SecurityInfoWatch: Less than 4 years after establishing, Bosch and Sony security partnership ends. Danielle VanZandt, industry analyst for security at research firm Frost & Sullivan, says:
“While Bosch found ways to keep itself relevant during the rapid rise of Hikvision, Dahua, and Axis Communications by keeping its cameras priced well, feature-rich, and improving image quality, Sony did not appear to follow the same trajectory. Rather, Sony focused more on image quality only and did not seem to consider analytics inclusion or other features that other camera manufacturers moved to include as a new standard. As such, when customers looked between the two brands (even if it was coming from the same sales force), Bosch cameras would win out due to these additional features and sometimes replace Sony cameras within existing deployments.”
This is quite a strange statement, considering that at the time of the partnership establishment, the companies' joint PR stated:
"Within the scope of the partnership, Sony will bring its leading expertise in video image quality and performance, while Bosch will add an extensive set of robust video analytics at the edge to interpret data as well as innovative technologies to achieve highly efficient bitrates and minimum storage requirements. "This partnership will revolutionize the video security industry since it combines the unique technological expertise and strengths of two leading companies in the field of video security applications. Customers can prosper from Sony's superior image quality, like its 4K solutions, combined with Bosch's bitrate management and video analytics," says Toru Katsumoto, Deputy President of Imaging Products and Solutions, Sector President of Professional Products Group, Sony Corporation."
SecurityToday reports that Sony exits the branded security camera business.
“While Bosch found ways to keep itself relevant during the rapid rise of Hikvision, Dahua, and Axis Communications by keeping its cameras priced well, feature-rich, and improving image quality, Sony did not appear to follow the same trajectory. Rather, Sony focused more on image quality only and did not seem to consider analytics inclusion or other features that other camera manufacturers moved to include as a new standard. As such, when customers looked between the two brands (even if it was coming from the same sales force), Bosch cameras would win out due to these additional features and sometimes replace Sony cameras within existing deployments.”
This is quite a strange statement, considering that at the time of the partnership establishment, the companies' joint PR stated:
"Within the scope of the partnership, Sony will bring its leading expertise in video image quality and performance, while Bosch will add an extensive set of robust video analytics at the edge to interpret data as well as innovative technologies to achieve highly efficient bitrates and minimum storage requirements. "This partnership will revolutionize the video security industry since it combines the unique technological expertise and strengths of two leading companies in the field of video security applications. Customers can prosper from Sony's superior image quality, like its 4K solutions, combined with Bosch's bitrate management and video analytics," says Toru Katsumoto, Deputy President of Imaging Products and Solutions, Sector President of Professional Products Group, Sony Corporation."
SecurityToday reports that Sony exits the branded security camera business.
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Samsung ISOCELL Promotional Video
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Sony Unveils Two 1080p Sensors for Security Applications
Sony adds two 1080p sensors to its lineup for security applications - IMX482 with 5.8um pixels and IMX462 with 2.9um pixels:
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EPFL & Canon Work Towards 2.2µm-small SPAD Pixels
Scitechdaily publishes more info about EPFL and Canon 1MP SPAD sensor:
“It’s something I’d been dreaming of for a long time,” says Edoardo Charbon, an EPFL professor and head of the Advanced Quantum Architecture Laboratory in EPFL’s School of Engineering. “MegaX is the culmination of over 15 years of research on single photon avalanche diodes (SPADs), which are photodetectors used in next-generation image-sensor technology.”
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“MegaX lets you increase the dynamic range substantially, far beyond what you can do with a high-definition camera,” says Charbon:
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The current MegaX camera has 9µm pixels. “Our team is already working on a next-generation MegaX with a pixel size of 2.2 µm,” adds Charbon. “Our goal isn’t necessarily to make MegaX work like a conventional camera, but rather to create a 4D camera” – the three standard dimensions plus time – “with as many pixels as possible, in order to achieve a higher resolution.”
“It’s something I’d been dreaming of for a long time,” says Edoardo Charbon, an EPFL professor and head of the Advanced Quantum Architecture Laboratory in EPFL’s School of Engineering. “MegaX is the culmination of over 15 years of research on single photon avalanche diodes (SPADs), which are photodetectors used in next-generation image-sensor technology.”
“MegaX lets you increase the dynamic range substantially, far beyond what you can do with a high-definition camera,” says Charbon:
The current MegaX camera has 9µm pixels. “Our team is already working on a next-generation MegaX with a pixel size of 2.2 µm,” adds Charbon. “Our goal isn’t necessarily to make MegaX work like a conventional camera, but rather to create a 4D camera” – the three standard dimensions plus time – “with as many pixels as possible, in order to achieve a higher resolution.”
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Canon & EPFL Report Performance of the World's Smallest 2.2um SPAD Pixel
Canon and EPFL publish OSA Optics Express paper "High fill-factor miniaturized SPAD arrays with a guard-ring-sharing technique" by Kazuhiro Morimoto and Edoardo Charbon.
"We present a novel guard-ring-sharing technique to push the limit of SPAD pixel miniaturization, and to demonstrate the operation of SPAD arrays with a 2.2 µm-pitch, the smallest ever reported. Device simulation and preliminary tests suggest that the optimized device design ensures the electrical isolation of SPADs with guard-ring sharing. 4×4 SPAD arrays with two parallel selective readout circuits are designed in 180 nm CMOS technology. SPAD characteristics for the pixel pitch of 2.2, 3, and 4 µm are systematically measured as a function of an active diameter, active-to-active distance, and excess bias. For a 4 µm-pitch, the fill factor is 42.4%, the maximum PDP 33.5%, the median DCR 2.5 cps, the timing jitter 88 ps, and the crosstalk probability is 3.57%, while the afterpulsing probability is 0.21%. Finally, we verified the feasibility of the proposed technique towards compact multi-megapixel 3D-stacked SPAD arrays."
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"We present a novel guard-ring-sharing technique to push the limit of SPAD pixel miniaturization, and to demonstrate the operation of SPAD arrays with a 2.2 µm-pitch, the smallest ever reported. Device simulation and preliminary tests suggest that the optimized device design ensures the electrical isolation of SPADs with guard-ring sharing. 4×4 SPAD arrays with two parallel selective readout circuits are designed in 180 nm CMOS technology. SPAD characteristics for the pixel pitch of 2.2, 3, and 4 µm are systematically measured as a function of an active diameter, active-to-active distance, and excess bias. For a 4 µm-pitch, the fill factor is 42.4%, the maximum PDP 33.5%, the median DCR 2.5 cps, the timing jitter 88 ps, and the crosstalk probability is 3.57%, while the afterpulsing probability is 0.21%. Finally, we verified the feasibility of the proposed technique towards compact multi-megapixel 3D-stacked SPAD arrays."
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Multispectral Sensor with Hybrid Plasmonic CFA
University of Melbourne and Australian National Fabrication Facility publish AIP paper "A single sensor based multispectral imaging camera using a narrow spectral band color mosaic integrated on the monochrome CMOS image sensor" by Xin He, Yajing Liu, Kumar Ganesan, Arman Ahnood, Paul Beckett, Fatima Eftekhari, Dan Smith, Md Hemayet Uddin, Efstratios Skafidas, Ampalavanapillai Nirmalathas, and Ranjith Rajasekharan Unnithan.
"We demonstrate a single sensor based three band multispectral camera using a narrow spectral band red–green–blue color mosaic in a Bayer pattern integrated on a monochrome CMOS sensor. The narrow band color mosaic is made of a hybrid combination of plasmonic color filters and a heterostructured dielectric multilayer. The demonstrated camera technology has reduced cost, weight, size, and power by almost n times (where n is the number of bands) compared to a conventional multispectral camera."
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"We demonstrate a single sensor based three band multispectral camera using a narrow spectral band red–green–blue color mosaic in a Bayer pattern integrated on a monochrome CMOS sensor. The narrow band color mosaic is made of a hybrid combination of plasmonic color filters and a heterostructured dielectric multilayer. The demonstrated camera technology has reduced cost, weight, size, and power by almost n times (where n is the number of bands) compared to a conventional multispectral camera."
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Fourier Ptychography Introduction
Duke University (USA), Advanced Research Center for Nanolithography (The Netherlands), Vrije Universiteit (The Netherlands), and University of Glasgow (UK) publish OSA Optics Express paper "Fourier ptychography: current applications and future promises" by Pavan Chandra Konda, Lars Loetgering, Kevin C. Zhou, Shiqi Xu, Andrew R. Harvey, and Roarke Horstmeyer.
"Traditional imaging systems exhibit a well-known trade-off between the resolution and the field of view of their captured images. Typical cameras and microscopes can either “zoom in” and image at high-resolution, or they can “zoom out” to see a larger area at lower resolution, but can rarely achieve both effects simultaneously. In this review, we present details about a relatively new procedure termed Fourier ptychography (FP), which addresses the above trade-off to produce gigapixel-scale images without requiring any moving parts. To accomplish this, FP captures multiple low-resolution, large field-of-view images and computationally combines them in the Fourier domain into a high-resolution, large field-of-view result. Here, we present details about the various implementations of FP and highlight its demonstrated advantages to date, such as aberration recovery, phase imaging, and 3D tomographic reconstruction, to name a few. After providing some basics about FP, we list important details for successful experimental implementation, discuss its relationship with other computational imaging techniques, and point to the latest advances in the field while highlighting persisting challenges."
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"Traditional imaging systems exhibit a well-known trade-off between the resolution and the field of view of their captured images. Typical cameras and microscopes can either “zoom in” and image at high-resolution, or they can “zoom out” to see a larger area at lower resolution, but can rarely achieve both effects simultaneously. In this review, we present details about a relatively new procedure termed Fourier ptychography (FP), which addresses the above trade-off to produce gigapixel-scale images without requiring any moving parts. To accomplish this, FP captures multiple low-resolution, large field-of-view images and computationally combines them in the Fourier domain into a high-resolution, large field-of-view result. Here, we present details about the various implementations of FP and highlight its demonstrated advantages to date, such as aberration recovery, phase imaging, and 3D tomographic reconstruction, to name a few. After providing some basics about FP, we list important details for successful experimental implementation, discuss its relationship with other computational imaging techniques, and point to the latest advances in the field while highlighting persisting challenges."
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